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Napoleon stated that “the history of Rome is the history of the world, and the western world grew up in the shadow of Rome.” Not only has Rome influenced past cultures but also elements from Roman culture can still be found today. I am attempting to show how Rome has helped shape the modern worlds architecture, governmental philosophy, and society. They were so successful at this because they collected ideas from other cultures and integrated them into their society. Living in America for 17 years and traveling to many cities, including Rome, I have been able to see firsthand the paradigms of Roman society that are still present in modern society.
Many advanced elements of current society started in Rome. Even if the idea did not originate from the Romans they further enhanced it in some way. For example the Romans were the first civilization to have aqueducts, which gave the cities running water. This was an amazing breakthrough for their society for many reasons. First, because they had clean water everywhere in the city they were able to eliminate many diseases, which prolonged the health of many Romans and kept the population stable. Second, they invented the running toilet based on using the running water of the aqueducts. When I heard about this from the tour guide I was quite impressed with the ingenuity of the Romans because aqueducts did not even become popular in Europe until the 1800s and the Romans had it around 700BC. I was surprised that once an idea was proven successful in Rome that other societies would have wanted to compete and discover this new technology.
Toilets were not the only invention that impressed me. The Romans invented the first highway and extensive road system, had the first police force, invented cement, and built incredible bridges. All of these things Rome had well before the western world. The western world chose to use elements from Rome because it was such a good model for them. The reason is because the Romans were good at standardizing the country to make it easy for people. For example they tried to have for the most part the same language, currency and law all around Rome so that it was easier for the country to function. For example if everyone speaks the same language and uses the same currency then someone can sell their goods from very far away with much less hassle than if he has to try and exchange money and get someone to translate. When I was in Rome I experienced current money standardization with the Euro. In order to standardize the currency and make it easier for people to exchange goods and services around Europe they came up with the Euro. I would argue that this idea stemmed from the Romans because the idea was successfully modeled in Rome and so why would another society not steal the idea. It seems to be working quite well for Europe too as the currency is not tied with one country but many so it is harder for it to fall drastically in for example, a day. It is interesting to me to see the contrast between the Euro and dollar because when I came to Italy in 2002 the Euro and dollar were very close but the Euro is much stronger now enabling Europe to continue rising. This parallels the Romans and how they were much more advanced than other societies because of standardization. With standard roads for example they can transport good much quicker than other countries. The world has greatly benefited from the inventions and ingenuity of the Roman Empire. This can also be seen today in architecture.
Roman Architecture and its techniques can be seen all over the modern world, specifically in the United States. For example, the Virginia state capital was influenced heavily by Roman architecture. It has the classic columns from Rome. Thomas Jefferson chose it for its pure and simplistic form, which was supposed to represent pure republican Rome before its excesses. (www.encarta.com) It is significant because the US was just beginning to govern itself so it was modeling itself in many ways after the Romans. Another example of Thomas Jeffersons work is the rotunda at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia was based on the Pantheon. In addition, he built 10 pavilions for each subject area that Virginia teaches each based on different Roman architecture. Jefferson believed that each building was “silently educating people about architecture.” (www.encarta.com) My sister goes to UVA so I saw the rotunda and the pavilions before going to Rome. I think that UVA has the most beautiful architecture of any college that I have seen. The pavilions have a different garden for each of them that are still kept up to this day. The rotunda is immaculate. When compared to the Pantheon it is nothing, however, it still gives off perfect mathematical structure like that of the Pantheon. When I went to Rome I could see the vast similarities in Architecture that